Homily about the Priesthood and Death

I had the opportunity to preach to the house tonight at Vespers. The script is found below.

You can listen here.

If I had to choose some words to describe this year, I would choose ‘death’ as one of them. This year, we mourned the death of our Holy Father. We have had more funerals this semester than at any point in my few years here. Before this year, I had only been a pall bearer once in my life, but in September I found myself with the opportunity to be a pall bearer twice within seven days. All Souls Day fell on a Sunday which means that every practicing Catholic was faced with the reality of death just yesterday. Even today, the In Paradisum began echoing throughout the dining room. This year, the formation program has asked more of my own self than at any other point thus far in my time in seminary. I personally have had to die in unique ways, but it can be hard to find the motivation to keep on going. One thing that many of the Church’s most excellent preachers have recommended for such a time is to pray about the Four Last things: Judgment, Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. 

Brothers, when I was discerning seminary, I never really entertained the role of the priest throughout the course of one’s life on earth. All I really had experienced from priests was preaching, celebrating Mass, and hearing confessions. This past year, I have been able to observe the importance of the priesthood when death is knocking on somebody’s door. In the spring, I was able to sit down with my former pastor, Fr. Walt Jenny, for an interview that was assigned to me by none other than the legendary Fr. Jack Manning. May God rest his soul. In the middle of the interview, Fr. Walt got an emergency call, and suddenly I was on my way to witnessing my first ever hospital visit. We were tenderly greeted by a family around the bedside of a man dying of ALS. It was striking how grateful they were that a priest was able to come so quickly. I could immediately tell how much their hearts had been softened by the suffering of their loved one. Father Walt told me one thing when we got back to the car: “If you get an emergency call and you show up, the family will forever be grateful. If you don’t show up, they will forever hold it against you and the Church as a whole.”

Another example of this was with my grandfather who I lost about 8 weeks ago. My family was able to call and get a priest to come to administer last rites before my grandfather’s mind started to go. First, he received the anointing of the sick and Holy communion, but he declined a final confession. He claimed that he had been far away from the sacrament for too many years and that it would just be easier to not deal with it. His children gave him obvious looks of concern, but they knew how comically stubborn he was about certain issues. This was the man who, despite having a sizable financial nest egg, would in his final days force my mom to split a footlong sub with him at Subway because it would save $2 over getting separate six inch sandwiches. Some battles just weren’t worth fighting with him, but I don’t think anybody will be fighting for their own 10 cents of the inheritance. Anyways, after some personal reflection, loving encouragement from his children, and Mary sending the grace of every rosary he had ever prayed, he at least decided to give it a shot. Just days before his final judgment, he was able to receive sacramental absolution for the first time in over twenty years.What if the priest had never shown up? What if the priest was too busy and said he had to leave after the first refusal of the sacrament? This all souls day would have felt quite different for my entire family. 

This vocation, brothers, is about so much more than ourselves and our own salvation. The way we carry ourselves in this vocation can have a significant effect on what our neighbor’s judgment day could look like. After that experience with my family, if I wasn’t already confident in my vocational discernment, I am now. All I can do now is pray that God may bring to fulfillment what he has begun in each one of us so that when our final hour draws near, we may eagerly hear the words: “Well done my good and faithful servant. Come share your master’s joy” 

Amen